Natalie Ryde Drawings

We are delighted to be showing the beautiful intricate drawings by Natalie Ryde next week at the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea - Stand C1. 

Natalie Ryde's drawings appear as abstracted, meshed forms floating over the surface of the paper, sometimes tethered to the edges, often isolated and adrift. Distorted structures within geometric shapes and patterns suggest a visible energy disrupted by an underlying force.

Ryde employs a free-hand, systemic drawing technique of interwoven lines that is visually resonant of her ancestors' work in the textile industry. Her practice often references the patterns and repetitive actions that are common to human routine and movement. This series of work has in common the form of the circle or loop, emphasising the cyclical nature of life, the repeated experience familiar and yet different each time. A feeling of time passing and human energy is present in the labour-intensive drawings. The abstracted forms do not offer us instant answers about their origins, instead encourage a contemplative and personal interpretation.

Her recent work alludes to making a deliberate attempt to perform an action in an irregular or opposite manner only to realise that the brain has subconsciously returned to its default process. Ryde contemplates divergent forces existing in equilibrium and considers quiet voices and subtle emotions in her compositions.

Following on from her 2015 exhibition The Way which explored the notion that adhering to a set course or system allows one to wander from the path; her new collection of work was produced in a period of experimentation that deliberately sought to expand all aspects of her working methodology. This expansion in process has conversely led to a refinement in both the form and composition of her works. The process of stretching Tosa Washi paper onto canvas is a recent development in the artist's work as she seeks to layer her drawn networks of lines with washes of colour.

Natalie Ryde's drawings are influenced by a flotsam of everyday observations from geometry and found patterns to scientific diagrams and organic forms. Her systemic cause and effect drawing process offers a thread that leads us back to the roots of these structures. Shapes and patterns are often broken or incomplete at their source and the process of drawing netted forms in response to these altered guidelines has the effect of mending the original. The repetition of the interwoven lines undulating over the surface and disappearing into voids is captivating and has an almost meditative effect. Step forward and the very human quality of the hand drawn line and minute decision making is clear to see and the drawings appear as a series of moment to moment actions.

We will have a number of these pieces available to view at our stand. For further information please contact Gina Cross +44 (0) 7950 415422 or art@gasart.co.uk